"Do you want to go? Go...
"
At the time I was in school, we both used to travel a lot to Rio de Janeiro, because my godfather
was in the military and at that time he served there. So we went many times a year, enough for
one season to live with them. In 1987 it wasn't usual for my mother to pick me up from school,
never really, because my younger brother and I went by bus from our neighborhood to the
center every day and we did the same route back by ourselves - not so much actually, because
there were many students that did the route, going and coming back in 1:20" by bus going, 1:45"
coming back in the late afternoon traffic.
This day was different, my brother came home with my other two brothers who studied at the
same school, only in the morning and my mother unexpectedly passed by with my godmother
Jacqueline in front of the school and picked me up so we could ride back with her. I was 12 and
a half years old and when I saw my mother and my godmother across the street while I was still
inside the gate, I felt excited and as soon as I passed through the blue barred gate I ran towards
aunt Jacqueline to hug her, in one weeks time my mother and I were going to travel to Rio to
visit her, so her pedagogical visit took me totally by surprise. My mom commented:
Aunt Jacqueline came early to drop Raissa off with her grandparents, we stopped by to give you
a ride, she will be back later today. Quickly Aunt Jaqueline commented again:
We are waiting for you now!
The two of them leaned against my godmother's burnt yellow beetle with white wheels. From the
driver's side, which was facing the side of the street, the square with trees that went around it as
a background view.
At that moment, even knowing that we were already going to the river a few weeks away,
I was very anxious knowing that aunt Jaqueline was going that very night and I turned to my
mother and almost instantly said: "I want to go with her today, can I, Mom? My mother didn't
usually let me do whatever I wanted, with anyone else she would have pulled my ear at that
moment, but she just answered "no need daughter, we are already going to visit them next
week".
My godmother, seeing my displeased face, told my mother that I could go, because the plane
had vacancies and that we could meet from there on the same date that we would make the trip
together. The plane she mentioned was the military one she and my uncle used to travel on, not
the one my mother and I were going on. My mother answered with a certain tone of not being
comfortable, but accepted it because she trusted aunt Jaqueline a lot. In a 15-second span
between me saying "leave it mom, leave it..." and her thinking, she answered: "do you want to
go? Go, wear Aunt Jaqueline's clothes and when I go I'll take your bag with you.
The 1:40 minute bus ride home was a trip apart with my excitement of not going to class
for one more week than I had planned, and still enjoying the beach and sightseeing with my
aunt, in my mind, it took a long time until we got home, dropped my mom off and changed into
our school clothes, then we were on our way, me and aunt Jacqueline for our ladies trip with
orange juice & english tea on the plane.
I don't know if many people have had the experience of what a trip in a military airplane
is like, but not even I, at the height of my 12 years old, was expecting it to be so different from
what we used to do. If the craziness of me going to another state with my clothes wasn't
enough, when we sat in the airplane seat that reminded me of a warplane from the movies that
used to be shown in the afternoon session, while I was sitting facing my aunt's seat, to my left
we had what would be a sign of an airplane window in the shape of a triangle, like the ones that
open from the inside to the outside of the Volkswagen beetles to circulate the air, but this one
didn't open. To my left was a car, yes, a car that the wheels alone were as big as I was sitting in.
Little did I know that when I arrived at their house, I found out that they were no longer going on
sightseeing tours. I spent the rest of the week wearing blouses like dresses and watching the
soap opera "Lady of Destiny" on television.
